Roskomnadzor blocked online exchangers NiceChange, ALFAtop, Bitokk, crypto payment service BTC Phone and a blog aboutcryptocurrencies ProstoCoin, based on the decision of the court of the Arkhangelsk region.
According to the document, on February 4, Nyandoma districtThe court decided to restrict access to the listed sites on the territory of the Russian Federation due to the dissemination of «prohibited information about the Bitcoin cryptocurrency».
The owner of the BTC Phone resource said that his site provides mobile phone top-up services with bitcoins and is not an information resource:
«I wouldn't say that this is a project thatbrings some tangible profit, but since there are regular users, the project is supported. On average, user activity is no more than 20-30 top-ups per day.
The plaintiff's claims to the ProstoCoin editorial office concerned one page, but ILV blocked the entire resource.
«The reason was the information posted onpage with a list of businesses accepting Bitcoin for payment in the Russian Federation. Even though only one page should be blocked, the entire site was blocked. At the moment, the page has already been deleted,” representatives of the portal said.
They also noted that the domain registrar prostocoin.com is NameCheap Inc, located outside the Russian Federation:
«No warnings came to either the hoster or the registrar».
The court decision refers to federal law«On the Central Bank of the Russian Federation», which prohibits the introduction into circulation in the country of monetary units other than the ruble and the issuance of money surrogates. Bitcoin, according to the court, is a “virtual means of payment and storage, not backed by real value and not containing information about its holders.”
«The process of issuing and circulating bitcoinsit is completely decentralized and there is no possibility of its regulation, including by the state, and cryptocurrency does not require special reporting documentation. Under such circumstances, cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, are money surrogates, contribute to the growth of the shadow economy and cannot be used by citizens and legal entities on the territory of the Russian Federation»- stated in the court decision.
The owner of the BTC Phone service intends to unite with representatives of other blocked sites and appeal the decision of the court of the Arkhangelsk region.
Earlier, Roskomnadzor blocked the forum of the bits.media cryptocurrency news portal on the basis of a decision of the Federal Tax Service of 2017.
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